Silence in the Library (TV story)
Silence in the Library 'is the eighth episode of the fourth series of ''Doctor Who. It was written by Steven Moffat, directed by Euros Lyn and featured David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor and Catherine Tate as Donna Noble with Alex Kingston as River Song. Overview To be added Synopsis Responding to a message on his psychic paper, the Doctor and Donna arrive in the Library, a planet-scale repository of every book ever written and yet not a single living person in sight, washing over a sheet of silence. The Library is soon entered by an expeditionary team, looking to find the reason for the library's going silent 100 years beforehand. While trying to figure out who the team's leader, River Song, is to him in his future, the Doctor also has to fathom out to meaning behind the last recording message in the Library: "Count the Shadows"... Plot On the instruction of Dr. Moon, a little girl closes her eyes and looks over a giant, planet-sized library, floating far above the ground. She opens her eyes to his instruction and finds herself back in her living room. She goes back to the library and arrives at a different part of where she did last time. Suddenly, something starts pounding on a nearby door and the girl gets distressed, insisting that it's not allowed. The door keeps pounding until it slams open and the Doctor and Donna come flying through it, blocking it off after them. They spot her and ask if it's alright if they stop for a bit when she suddenly opens her eyes. Earlier, the Doctor lands the TARDIS on the Library in the 51st Century, an expanse of books spanning the entire planet. They wander over to look over the city-looking environment when the Doctor takes note of how quiet it is and how there doesn't seem to be anybody around, despite the fact that they're in the biggest library in the universe. He does a scan for life on a nearby terminal wherein it only registers the pair of them; however, he extends the parameters from humanoid life to any kind and the terminal resisters over 1,000,000,000 life forms on the planet and yet there is nobody around. They suddenly hear a voice from the reception and find a statue with a human face on it, serving as an information node in the library, that provides them with the last recorded message from the library, a warning saying "Count the shadows". Wandering into a hallway, the Doctor shows Donna a message he'd received on his psychic paper calling them to the Library; while Donna asks why he'd answer a summons from someone he doesn't know, the lights in the corridor start going out and they run. Kicking in a jammed door, Donna and the Doctor hurry in and barricade the door behind them. They turn and spot a security camera watching them, just as it shuts down. The Doctor examines the and it asks him to stop. In the girl's living room, she collapses to the floor before turning to Dr. Moon and telling him 'others are coming'. While Donna asks the node about the camera's same message, freaking out over the nodes having real dead people's faces on them, she nearly backs into a shadow beside the camera and the Doctor stops her. While they observe the lights going off in one corner of the room, the shadow disappears and the Doctor insists they have to leave for the TARDIS since the shadow hadn't vanished but moved. Before they turn to leave though, the door bursts open and six people in white suits come in, headed by a woman who addresses the Doctor familiarly. He instructs the newcomers to turn around and leave in their rocket because there's a danger in the Library but they insist that that's why they're there for the purpose of their expedition. The Doctor disgruntledly realises that they are a team of archeologists, led by Professor River Song. Before they set to work, the Doctor orders them all to stay standing in the light and tells one of River's team, Other Dave, to seal off the door they came through. Taking a torch from Lux, the Doctor looks into the darkness where he reasons the threat is residing: the Vashta Nerada, carnivorous predators that live in the shadows. Everybody gets to work on setting up lights while River calls the Doctor over to talk with him. She draws a book from her bag, with covers that look like and are coloured like the TARDIS, and starts name-checking various events to see whether or not they've 'done it yet'. She observes the Doctor wistfully before her wist turns to mourn when, pressing him to tell her that he knows who she is, the Doctor doesn't know her at all. Before anything more is said, an alarm that sounds like a phone goes off throughout the room. In the girl's living room, the phone starts ringing; she presses her dad to answer it but he says that it isn't ringing. She tries to answer it herself but the ringing stops and she returns to her drawing. In the Library, the Doctor takes over working on the terminal of Proper Dave and he appears on the little girl's TV. Before he can ask much, the picture fades and the terminal locks him out, the word 'CAL' appearing on screen. The girl tries to get him back with the TV remote but just causes books in the Library to start flying off the shelves. The Doctor asks Lux what CAL means, but he refuses to cooperate on protecting his family's pride. The Doctor confronts him and rather angrily informs him that he won't allow everybody to die because he considers his pride more important. River shows the Doctor a data extract that came with the planet's final message, reading "4022 saved, no survivors". While they talk, Miss Evangelista stumbles across a hidden door and wanders down a corridor to a dark section of the Library. The others suddenly hear her scream and run to find her, only to stumble across a skeleton in shredded suit remnants. River tries calling Evangelista and the broadcast comes through on the collar of the skeleton's suit; the Vashta Nerada reduced her to nothing. The bars on her collar start faltering as the last parts of Evangelista's consciousness, rendered a data ghost after her death by the neural relay in her comms device storing a copy of it temporarily, start to wain away. She addresses Donna, the last person who was nice to her as her crew members often tormented her, considering her stupid, before the data ghost finally fades. River breaks off the device and Donna is distressed by what she'd just witnessed. Returning to the main section, the Doctor takes a chicken leg from River's lunch box and throws it into a shadow, proving the existence of the Vashta Nerada. In the girl's living room, Dr. Moon prepares to leave but, on his way out, he imparts to her that everything in the library is really happening and what she perceives as the real world is a lie. He tells her that there are people trapped in the library that are in danger, people only she can save. While the Doctor scans for the Vashta Nerada in the shadows, Donna asks River about knowing the Doctor in the future and asks why she doesn't know her in that same future. With no way to actually fight the Vashta Nerada, the Doctor plans to evacuate everybody to an index point and activate an exit teleport. Donna finds the exit teleport but, as they head off to it, the Doctor stops Proper Dave and directs him to the fact that he now has two shadows, a sign that the Vashta Nerada are now targetting him. He has his crewmates place his helmet on and tries to increase the density of their suits to increase protection. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to do this and gestures for River to take it when she pulls out her own screwdriver that looks exactly like his and does the rest of the suits. The Doctor takes Donna to the teleports and, to her chagrin, activates it and sends her back to the TARDIS when River calls him back. Donna appears in the TARDIS but suddenly disappears from inside. Proper Dave's other shadow seems to disappear, but the Doctor scans where it was; Dave suddenly starts complaining about the dark and turns to face everybody, revealing his visor has gone black. He suddenly recoils in his suit to the sound of various crunches and roars and his neural relay starts blinking out, meaning the Vashta Nerada have already killed him. The Doctor approaches the still standing figure, which keeps repeating Dave's final thought, "Hey, who turned out the lights?", and it throttles him. The visor becomes visible to reveal a skeleton inside the suit. River breaks it's grip on the Doctor with her screwdriver and it starts extruding more shadows to besiege them. River makes the party and exit with her sonic blaster and they escape, while the Vashta Nerada pursue them. In the girl's living room, she tells her dad that 'Donna Noble had been saved'. The Doctor works on the lights when the group stops to rest. He tells River that he sent Donna back to the TARDIS but realises that he didn't receive a signal that she made it and asks a node if she's anywhere in the Library. The node turns to him with a new face: Donna's. She iterates the same sentiment on repeat, "Donna Noble has left the Library. Donna Noble has been saved." The Vashta Nerada suddenly find them and the survivors make for the exit but they lose their light, leaving them pinned between the advancing predator in the suit and the millions in the dark... Cast * The Doctor - David Tennant * Donna Noble - Catherine Tate * Professor River Song - Alex Kingston * Dr Moon - Colin Salmon * The Girl - Eve Newton * Dad - Mark Dexter * Node 1 - Sarah Niles * Node 2 - Joshua Dallas * Anita - Jessika Williams * Strackman Lux - Steve Pemberton * Miss Evangelista - Talulah Riley * Other Dave - O-T Fagbenle * Proper Dave - Harry Peacock Crew To be added References To be added Story Notes To be added Continuity To be added Home video and audio releases To be added External Links * Official ''Silence in the Library'' page on '''Doctor Who Website